The report focused on several categories including how generally available the platform is to the market, the width of its offerings, it’s level of consumer adoption in the enterprise sector, and global presence. The report focused on a variety of companies that range from Microsoft to Pivotal and SAP, showcasing the fact that while global superpower companies do not own the market and there is room for growth.

Not surprisingly, Amazon and Microsoft are leading the pack by a fair margin when it comes to almost every category, with the closest competitor to those two being Google. Forrester mapped their results on what they call the “Forrester Wave” to depict the market powers in North America. They categorized the 11 companies they studied into 4 major spaces: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, & Challengers. They then place these companies on the graph based on the criteria measured and then show market share by allowing for larger or smaller points on the graph (it’s hard to explain well but see the image to the right).

This data stays fairly consistent to a best-fit-line, telling us that many of these companies are on a similar trajectory, some are just further down the path than others. When looking at the line there is a major outlier in Alibaba because of how much market share they command while not being considered a leader or even a strong performer. This is most likely due to the large user base that they tapped into from the start of development, while companies like Red Hat and Pivotal are more specialized with a smaller starting audience.

The major takeaway for AnswerHub is the fact that more and more companies are entering the market for all Development-Only solutions, not just for cloud-based platforms. This is a space that is continually going to expand over the foreseeable future and it’s exciting being in a market that is expanding at such an incredible rate. The key now for anyone in this space is to determine what kind of player they want to be.